Tuesday, 05 January 2010

• Cheap iPhone Apps: Avoiding Impulse Buys

   

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  With the holiday season behind us, I'm sure a lot of people out there have new gadgets they're playing with. And I'm willing to bet a good number of those gadgets are iPhones or iPods with access to Apple's App Store. While there are plenty of free apps out there, there are still those apps out there that only cost pennies and all the iTunes songs. And while the convenience of buying those things is  great, it does present yet another opportunity for impulse spending. And everyone needs another chance to impulsively spend money, right?

  And yes, I know it's not like downloading apps and songs is inherently expensive. But the ease of access is exactly what makes it dangerous. It's so easy to nickel and dime yourself into spending a lot of money without even realizing it. Not to mention the danger of spending money on apps you use once and then never touch again.

  Trent over at The Simple Dollar, one of my favorite personal finance blogs, tackled this very issue last year after he got an iPod Touch for Christmas. This guy is one of the most frugal out there, and even he managed to get sucked into the convenience of downloading apps and spent more than he realized. So he wrote this post that offered some tips on how to avoid impulsively downloading apps and other goodies for your electronic gadgets.

  The thing is, his great tips work for any kind of impulse spending, not just reckless downloading in an app store.  And impulse buys seem to be a chronic problem for everyone, whether you've gotten down a system for beating the urge or are still battling those desires. So here are the tips from The Simple Dollar with some input from me on how to apply the tips to any impulse buys:

  • Make it Inconvenient to Download (or purchase): He did this by hiding the app store, requiring more effort to spend those few cents. You can do this by limiting your trips to the store each week or avoiding those places that always get you (Hello Target!)

  • Don't Browse Aimlessly:  Just like when you're shopping at your personal store of weakness (Hi again Target!),  aimlessly looking around the store is bound to lead you to shopping temptation. So make sure you shop with a list and a mission, and you'll do yourself some favors.    

  • Do Purchase Research in Advance: Trent suggests researching the apps and listenign to song clips before downloading to make sure you only buy what you want. The same thing goes for any product. Don't just jump into big purchases without research first, and try to avoid buying those extra little things you know you don't need.

  • Use the Ten Second Rule: This is one of Trent's standard shopping rules and it just involves stopping and thinking for ten seconds about WHY you're buying something. Think about why you want it, if you even really do want it, if you can find it somewhere for less, etc. I can't tell you how many times this has saved me from dropping $10 on another tube of lip gloss I didn't need.

  • Budget for Anything Unnecessary: It's not that you aren't allowed to buy  extra things that make you happy. The idea here is to just keep track of what you're spending on these things and set aside a small budget for them. That way you can still enjoy yourself and not feel deprived without hurting your bottom line. 

  • Appreciate the freebies: Some of the best apps are the free ones, and likewise you can get some really great free samples from stores or through trades. You don't always have to spend money to (legally!) get the things you want.

  Do you follow any of these tips? How do you control impulse spending? Have you gotten yourself into any trouble with things like downloaded apps?

   

  Check out the full post over at: http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2009/01/02/navigating-the-hazards-of-impulse-purchasing/

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